


Transfigurations 12:4

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [47]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andraste chose a mage to be her Herald, or so the story goes. Anders finds it tough to swallow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transfigurations 12:4

Chantries all used the same incense. Even here in Llomerryn where the scent of the sea pervaded everything, there was still that same cloyingly sweet smoke curling through the air, just as it had been in Hightown, just as it had been in the little chapel tucked away in Kinloch Hold.

Their statue of Andraste was different—a Rivaini design, Anders supposed. Instead of a sword, she held a flame in a bronze bowl, casting flickering patterns of light and shadow across her stone face, lending her the illusion of a shifting expression. Andraste the guide, lighting the path to bring Llomerryn’s sailors safely home again, or to send less fortunate sailors swiftly across the Fade.

That bowl of flame and the little candles lit by petitioners were the only sources of light this late at night, and the main room of the chantry was largely empty aside from a handful of people seeking refuge here, sleeping in cots in a curtained-off section in the back.

 _Kirkwall_ _could have used a few of those after the Blight._ _But Maker forbid they invite the rabble up into Hightown._

Varric had gotten religion, or so Anders gathered from the letter in his hands.

This was the first they’d heard from him in months. Unusual, as Varric and Hawke had been keeping in regular contact since Kirkwall, even with all the changes in address and aliases.

And at the same time that Varric went mysteriously silent, reports of fresh disasters had started pouring in. Hawke had been just about tearing his hair out, convinced that Varric had somehow gotten caught up in one crisis or another. There’d been an urgent warning from Nathaniel to get out of Ferelden, as something was going very wrong with the Wardens in the south. Vague, conflicting stories about the disaster at the Divine’s conclave. Rumors of Tevinter taking too much of an interest in the rebel mages. Templars acting strangely even for templars. And the rise of the Inquisition, a blatant power grab by the Chantry in the wake of their failed conclave.

That last one was no surprise.

Anyone could see the Chantry was getting desperate. It wasn’t just the mages and the templars that they’d lost control of; many people were looking at the ongoing war as the Chantry’s responsibility. Most of them still didn’t see or care to see the Chantry’s abuses, but everyone knew that keeping the mages and templars in line was the Chantry’s job, and their failure was costing them in all sorts of unexpected ways. The University of Orlais, which had already been known to clash with the Chantry on rare occasions, had started openly supporting research that completely contradicted Chantry doctrine. Even grand clerics found the nobility were paying less attention to their advice now that they’d proven unable to control their own people.

The Divine’s conclave had been their best shot at stopping their political influence from slipping away completely. Instead, they’d lost their entire leadership in one stroke.

But right on cue, here they were reinventing themselves under a new name.

The Inquisition officially claimed not to be associated with the Chantry, but they weren’t putting any real effort into that pretense. The organization was openly controlled by the Hands of the Divine, along with the templar who’d been Meredith’s second-in-command throughout the worst of Kirkwall’s injustices; and if that hadn’t made their intent plain enough, they’d chosen to name themselves after the Inquisition, the group of mage-hunters that had given rise to the templars in the first place. This new version had even propped up a divinely-appointed Herald of Andraste to justify their actions, inspiring a new army of fanatics to replace the military might that the Chantry had lost.

Maybe there really was a genuine religious schism going on around this Herald, though Anders doubted it. This Trevelyan was too convenient a puppet for the Chantry—a rebel Circle mage welcomed back into the fold without punishment, elevated even; it was a blatant move to coax the mages back under this new version of the Chantry’s yoke. And it was working. The leader of the Loyalists had already thrown in with the Inquisition, no surprise there. Anders wasn't optimistic about how well that would work out for them, but it was Fiona's rebel faction that he was worried about now.

Whether the schism was real or not, the Inquisition certainly acted like they had all the authority of the Chantry behind them—for that matter, they acted like they had the authority of the Maker Himself behind them. Their templar captain and his troops marched with no regard for national borders, laying claim to half the countryside.

And Varric was with them, apparently.

He claimed he was fine—he’d been kidnapped, but he was fine, it had worked out. Or at least that was how things had stood at the time he’d written the letter, not long after the disaster at the conclave. It had taken some time for the letter to catch up to Hawke in Llomerryn; and when it did reach him, nothing about it made any sense.

“Maybe it’s some kind of code,” Hawke had said when he first read it. He’d turned the letter upside down as if hoping some hidden image would appear. “Maybe he’s asking us to rescue him. Unless he’s warning us to stay away. ...He could be spying on them for us, maybe?”

But it was clear he didn't really believe it. If there was any kind of code in Varric’s letter, they hadn’t been able to find it—and anyway, Anders doubted that his old friend had suddenly taken an interest in helping the mages’ cause now, after all these years.

Varric wrote about the Inquisition at great length, but it was all stories of the good work they were doing. A gathering of heroes, to hear him tell it, _fixing Blondie’s mess_ under the leadership of a mage chosen by Andraste herself. Varric always did love a good story, but he sounded like he really believed this one.

Anders looked up at the shifting shadows playing over Andraste’s stone features.

The chantry was quiet. Back in Kinloch Hold, no matter the hour, there’d always seemed to be an apprentice or two in the chapel, bowing their head before Andraste and praying for forgiveness, praying for this curse upon them to be taken away. Not the older mages, generally. Maybe those apprentices eventually adjusted to life in the tower. Or more likely, maybe they didn’t make it through their Harrowings. Anders had been too wrapped up in his own desperation at the time to really keep track of everyone else’s; he couldn’t remember how many of those faces in the chapel had wound up with a brand on their forehead.

But he still remembered the Chant.

 _My Maker, know my heart_  
_Take from me a life of sorrow_  
_Lift me from a world of pain_  
_Judge me worthy of Your endless pride._

 _My Creator, judge me whole:_  
_Find me well within Your grace_  
_Touch me with fire that I be cleansed_  
_Tell me I have sung to Your approval._

The Canticle of Transfigurations was always a popular one in the tower. Not that those prayers were ever answered as far as he could tell, not unless the answer was found on the point of a templar blade.

There were always superstitions about less lethal cures for the ‘curse’ of magic, though most of them sounded like their own forms of torture, and none of them actually worked. But people still liked to cling to hope in whatever form they could find it. The Chantry officially condemned that sort of thing—magic was the Maker’s punishment, and no mortal hands could undo the Maker’s work, or something to that effect; better to just accept their destiny, pray for a forgiveness in death that they wouldn’t find in life, and quietly spend their days enchanting knickknacks to raise Chantry funds. Still, the superstitions persisted.

No wonder the Inquisition had propped up this Herald. They had to know what Andraste's blessing would mean to the mages.

_How dare they? How could they use this against us?_

It was quite the story, he had to give them that; perfectly designed to appeal to a frightened mage in need of some hope. He could see why Varric would appreciate it. The destruction of the conclave, and with it, the chance of any compromise with the templars. The mages finally rose up after ages of imprisonment, and at that pivotal moment, Andraste herself stretched out her hand and gave them her mark, her blessing, as if to proclaim before all the world that their cause was righteous.

What mage wouldn’t want to believe in that?

It was a trick. It was a fairy tale, like wildflowers that could cure the Blight. And it was being turned against them, a cheap ploy to bring the mages to heel, playing on the dreams of every desperate apprentice who’d ever prayed in a Circle chapel. If there was any truth to it, this Herald would have been standing with the rebel mages, not with some thinly-disguised version of the Chantry.

And yet.

He felt for the amulet around his neck, an old Tevinter pattern, taken from a darkspawn who’d claimed to be an ancient magister. A fairy tale come to life.

He’d crumpled Varric’s letter in his hand without realizing it. With a grimace, he smoothed it out, reading once more over the lines in the dim light of the chantry, reading Varric’s stories of the Herald of Andraste. It was ridiculous—even knowing, _knowing_ that this was a Chantry trick, a part of him still wanted to believe it.

Maybe they were never cursed.


End file.
